


Music

by AconitumNapellus



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, M/M, Memories, Musicians, Soviet Union
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28894896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: Napoleon and Illya's friendship is only a few years old, and there are still a lot of things that Napoleon doesn't know about his partner.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Comments: 15
Kudos: 67





	Music

The spotlight was full on the musicians on the stage. They probably couldn’t see anything of the audience. The listening crowd would be a dim blur, the clinks of cutlery and glasses obscured by the music. Maybe the musicians weren’t thinking about the audience. They seemed so wrapped up in what they were playing, as jazz musicians tended to be, in Napoleon’s experience. Not that he could claim to be focusing entirely on the music, as a good audience member should. It was hard to focus on the music when he had his arm around the shoulders of such a beautiful woman as this. His eyes kept straying to the way the light glinted on her smooth arms, to the sparkle on her diamond drop earrings, which he was almost entirely certain were real, and the rapt look on her face, because she, at least, was listening entirely to the music.

He leant in a little closer to her, so his lips were almost touching her ear.

‘After this, we could go back to my place for a – ahem – a nightcap,’ he suggested softly.

‘Hmm?’

She was jolted a little from her distraction in the music. She looked at him and smiled.

‘Do you see the guy on the cor anglais?’ she asked him.

Napoleon laughed softly. ‘To be honest, dear, I haven’t been exactly focussing on the musicians.’

She gave him a little more attention then.

‘Oh, I am sorry, Napoleon,’ she told him. ‘It’s just that guy – ’

Napoleon turned his gaze onto the stage then, pretty much for the first time. He certainly hadn’t noticed the guy on the English horn, who was partly obscured by some of the other musicians. It was a moment before he could see much more than hands moving on the instrument; but then someone moved, and he could see his face.

‘Illya!’ he said aloud.

His date turned to look at him, eyes widening.

‘You  _ know _ him?’

Napoleon’s brain worked quickly. What was Illya doing up there? He had no idea Illya played an instrument, although he knew he liked jazz. Could this be for a mission, something he didn’t know about? Was Illya under cover?

‘Oh – I – ’ he faltered. ‘No. No, I just thought – He looks like someone I know, but it’s not him. My friend, Ian, he’s got a tin ear. Can’t even whistle in tune. Never mind about him. I’d rather talk about you.’ He tried his most winning smile. ‘I don’t often get to date girls with the profile of a Nubian queen.’

She raised one eyebrow slightly, but didn’t take her eyes off Illya; because it  _ was _ Illya. It was definitely Illya, in a white poloneck and black slacks, with shades over his eyes. Definitely Illya.

‘Don’t give me any of your two dimensional hieroglyphic queens,’ she told him, still watching the band. ‘Honey, I’m named for a Somali queen who ruled over every man in the land.’

‘Arawelo,’ Napoleon mused, bringing it back to mind. He had a vague memory, one of the thousands of little facts that he tended to store in his head, just in case. ‘Of course you are. And it’s a beautiful name.’

He glanced up at a passing waiter and indicated for him to refill their drinks. Then he finally gave up and looked back to the stage. He was getting the feeling that he wasn’t going to end up taking this beautiful woman back home with him. She was so stuck on the band.

_ Even when he’s not by my side, here he is, stealing my dates _ , he thought a little grudgingly. Illya vastly underestimated his own ability to attract women, always thinking it was Napoleon that they flocked to. What Napoleon never admitted to him was that Illya’s presence just meant Napoleon had to work that much harder. And of course Illya hardly ever did work himself. He just flashed his baby-blue eyes and the women fell over like ninepins, and ninety percent of the time Illya didn’t even notice.

There was – something about Illya, though. He had to admit that, sitting here, watching him play. And god, how he played. How could he have had no idea that Illya played the English horn? He had always noticed that Illya’s hands were large for his body size, but they certainly weren’t ungainly. The way his fingers moved on the keys was just – beautiful. Yes, it was beautiful. There was something about watching Illya play that just made his stomach flip over. It was like stepping off a cliff.

‘ – maybe at the stage door?’

He blinked and looked back at his date. He felt as if he were stepping off a transatlantic flight, dislocated in time and space.

‘I’m sorry?’ he said.

‘If we hang about until the end, maybe we could see him at the stage door,’ Arawelo said to him. ‘Wouldn’t you like to talk to him?’

‘Uh – I don’t know,’ Napoleon replied. If Illya were here on a mission, it would be best to just ignore him. He could ask him about it later. Turning up at the stage door could blow everything.

She looked at him directly then, pursing her lips in chagrin.

‘Jealous, huh? Napoleon, I want to talk with him. Find out a little more about him. He just looks like a cool guy. That’s all.’

‘I – er – I think I should call it a night, to be honest,’ he said, wiping his lips with his napkin. ‘It’s been lovely, Arawelo. Really wonderful. But I’m just back from Europe and I have to be in work for eight tomorrow, and I’m just exhausted. I’m sorry.’

She gave a little shrug of regretful resignation.

‘Well, you did tell me your work was demanding, didn’t you? That’s all right, honey. You go home. I’ll hang around a little longer.’

What was wrong with him? Everything he had said was true, but that didn’t mean he actually wanted to go home and sleep. He could have pushed aside the jet lag, exhaustion, and the threat of an early start. He could probably have lured her attention back to him even with Illya there on the stage. But suddenly, he just didn’t want to. He had lost all interest in taking her home with him. He just wanted to find out about Illya, and that English horn.

((O))

  
  


‘So, you were working last night?’ Napoleon asked Illya casually the next day, in their little shared office.

Illya looked up in surprise, pushing his tinted reading glasses back up his nose. He looked so different from last night, in a crisp white shirt with his holster over the top, his black tie loosely knotted. Apart from the holster, he could have been an office worker in any mundane job. But Napoleon knew that under those clothes was not the unseasoned body of a typist, but the lean and well maintained physique of a very active man. Illya was a little like Clark Kent.

‘Working?’ Illya asked. ‘No, Napoleon. I had the night off. In fact, I clocked off a little early.’

‘Oh,’ Napoleon said in surprise. ‘I thought you were – Illya, do you play an instrument?’ he asked directly.

Illya started. ‘I’m sorry, Napoleon?’

‘Do you play an instrument?’ Napoleon asked.

‘Yes,’ Illya said simply, and turned back to his typing.

Napoleon watched his fingers moving on the keys, the same fingers that had so deftly plied that English horn last night. Now Illya had his tongue a little between his lips, concentrating. His fingers were moving just as swiftly as they had on the instrument.

‘What do you play?’ Napoleon asked.

Illya rested his hands down and looked up again. ‘Really, Napoleon, I do need to get this report finished.’

‘No, seriously, what do you play?’ Napoleon insisted. ‘I’m interested. I didn’t even know you could read music.’

Illya shrugged. ‘I had piano lessons from a very young age,’ he said.

‘So you play the piano. Just the piano?’

Illya pushed his papers aside. ‘Shall we go and get some coffee, Napoleon?’ he asked.

‘Okay,’ Napoleon shrugged. ‘Coffee. What other instruments do you play?’

Illya locked the papers in the filing cabinet, tightened his tie, and gestured to the door.

‘Why the sudden interest in my hobbies?’ he asked. ‘You’ve known me two years now.’

‘Well, and I never knew you played piano,’ Napoleon told him, as they walked out into the corridor. ‘What else don’t I know about you?’

Illya smiled enigmatically. ‘I’m sure there are many things you don’t know about me, Napoleon. Yes, I play the piano. I play the guitar. I play the oboe, and the cor anglais.’ Then he added rather dryly, 'You probably know it as the English horn.'

Napoleon kept his face almost blank, although he felt that falling feeling in his stomach again, the little flip that he more usually associated with desire for beautiful women.

‘Well, you should perform for the U.N.C.L.E. annual show,’ he said in a casual tone.

Illya shook his head, with a little self-deprecating smile. ‘Oh, no. I’ve never really been comfortable performing in front of people I know.’

So… Standing on a well lit stage in front of a dark room, with an audience he couldn’t see, the milling, anonymous crowd of a jazz club and restaurant, was probably right down Illya’s alley, Napoleon thought.

‘What do you play?’ he asked. ‘Mozart? Tchaikovsky? Debussy?’

Illya shrugged. ‘Whatever I feel like. Yes, sometimes classical.’

‘Jazz?’ Napoleon asked.

Illya shot him a curious look, but they were stepping into the commissary at that moment, and instead of questioning him he asked, ‘Coffee, then? Milk?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Napoleon nodded, and went to find a table.

  
  


((O))

  
  


Napoleon tilted his head back to look up at the old brownstone. The place had been converted into apartments years ago. The stoops along the front had rusting railings and the yards weren’t much more than dust and paving slabs, and he wondered why Illya insisted on living in a place like this when his agent’s salary could pay for a much better one.

The lights were on up there on the fourth floor, where Illya’s apartment was. Every now and then he saw a shadow moving behind the drawn blinds. Just one person, he was sure, and he was sure that one person was Illya. Could he hear music coming from up there? He wasn’t sure. The street wasn’t exactly a quiet place.

He wished he could creep up and take Illya by surprise, perhaps catch him in the middle of practising, but you didn’t surprise agents unless you had a death wish, and agents didn’t let themselves be easily surprised. He had to buzz at the front door just to be able to get up to Illya’s place. The intercom system looked much newer than everything else about the door, and he didn’t mind betting there hadn’t been one when Illya had moved in. Probably HQ had checked into his address, and insisted on it.

There his name was, written on a slip of paper as if for all the world he was expecting to only be there for a week. The slip hadn’t changed for two years. Napoleon pressed the button, and a few moments later he heard Illya’s voice.

‘Yes?’

‘Solo,’ he said economically, and was pleased at the tone of Illya’s voice when he replied, ‘Oh, Napoleon! Come right up!’

The lock released and Napoleon went inside. The hallway smelt of shoes and a medley of cooking smells. It was nothing like Napoleon’s plush place in here. He remembered the first time Illya had come to his apartment, standing and looking around with an intense expression that Napoleon couldn’t easily read. He wondered if it had been disguised awe. You could have fit Illya’s whole apartment into Napoleon’s living room and bedroom.

He jogged up the stairs, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe he was hoping to catch Illya in a rare moment, before his shields were entirely up. Hoping to get to the door before Illya expected him. But as he raised his hand to knock, the door opened, and Illya gestured him in.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure, Napoleon?’ he asked.

He had a towel around his shoulders, and his hair was damp.

‘Uh – I got you out of the shower, didn’t I?’ Napoleon asked guiltily.

‘Not quite,’ Illya shrugged. ‘I’d been out a few minutes.’

He was wearing slacks and a t-shirt, but his skin still had that naked look of the recently wet. The t-shirt stuck to the contours of his body all over. The hairs on his arms were standing up and his skin was flushed, as if he had just been buffing himself dry. His feet were bare. He was all understated muscle and masculine lines.

There was a disc on the record player, and Illya moved to it as if to turn it off.

‘Leave it,’ Napoleon said. ‘It’s fine. I – er – I didn’t come round for anything special, Illya. I just wondered if you were in.’

Illya smiled. ‘Didn’t we see each other at work yesterday?’ he asked.

‘Well, yes, we did, but work is work,’ Napoleon shrugged.

He produced a wrapped bottle from under his coat.

‘Anyway, I brought a friend,’ he said, handing the bottle to Illya.

Illya unwrapped the brown paper, and smiled.

‘Slivovitz! Napoleon, where on earth did you get that?’

Napoleon tapped the side of his nose. ‘Special contact in Terbuf,’ he said. ‘I saw how much you liked it over there.’

His stomach made that odd flip again. He remembered Illya sitting there in that pub cellar with a bottle of slivovitz in one hand and some kind of cured meat in the other. He had seemed in his element, and full of joy. And before that, before their vacation had unravelled into strangeness and intrigue, that had been pitched to give him butterflies, too. They had come so close on that trip to Rome. So close. Staying in the same room, no mission to distract them, exploring the city together. Whenever his skin had brushed against Illya’s he had felt electricity. Illya had carped at him and bickered and criticised his judgement on everything from the hotel to the restaurants they ate in, but he had loved every minute of it.

Of course he had brought a case of slivovitz back from Terbuf. Of course. How else did you apologise to your partner for abandoning your long-needed vacation to help an old girlfriend in a matter of life and death?

‘Well,’ Illya said. ‘This time, at least, I have glasses for this. Sit down, Napoleon.’

Napoleon sank down onto the settee. Illya disappeared for a moment into the kitchen, and when he came back he had two glasses in one hand, and a bread board loaded with bread and cheese and a little dish of dipping oil in the other. He had left the damp towel behind.

‘Old times,’ Illya said, nodding towards the board. ‘Remember that cellar?’

‘In Terbuf,’ Napoleon said, laughing. ‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘Well, I don’t have the meats, but I have some food, at least. You didn’t exactly allow me to prepare.’

He bent down and cut a few thick slices from the loaf, cutting them in half so they could easily be dipped. He picked up the cheese knife and embedded it in the piece of cheese like a dagger.

Napoleon just watched him. The record on the turntable had ended, and the needle was hissing in the last few grooves, before it neatly lifted itself up and returned to rest at the side.

‘Pour,’ Illya said, nodding towards the bottle. ‘I’ll go and change the disc.’

He went to take the black LP from the turntable, slipping it into an anonymous brown cover. He went with it into his bedroom, before coming back with another brown slipcase just as anonymous as the first.

‘You, er, keep your records in your bedroom?’ Napoleon asked, curious. ‘But you keep your record player in the living room? What do you do? Hide them under your bed?’

Illya looked a little embarrassed then. He shrugged awkwardly. ‘Old habits die hard, Napoleon.’

Napoleon looked at him curiously. ‘You – do hide them under your bed?’

Illya turned the paper envelope in his hands. It looked strangely light and flexible for an LP.

‘I suppose they’re not hidden under there,’ he said. ‘Not any more.’

He opened the envelope and slipped the record out of its covering. He held it up to the light, and Napoleon leant forward. It was shaped like a conventional LP, but the thing was an x-ray. The image was a delicate rib cage, the bones arcing in pale lines across the darker background. There were words in Cyrillic written in the centre.

‘Russian?’ Napoleon asked, standing to get a better look, turning his head to try to read the words.

‘Well, technically, Ukrainian, Napoleon. Did you know they are distinct tongues? I mean, there are many words that are the same, or almost the same, but many that are different, too.’

‘I didn’t realise,’ Napoleon said.

He would have to add Ukrainian to his long list of languages that Illya had proved himself fluent in, and to his slowly growing list of things he hadn’t known about his partner before.

‘I happen to know that these ribs belonged to a girl called Yulia Tkachenko,’ Illya said in a rather abstracted voice, turning the record in the light. ‘She was x-rayed for TB. Of course, the part with her name was cut off, but I saw the record made. Galyna used to bring home what she could from the clinic, and then they would make the records.’

‘Banned music,’ Napoleon murmured, and Illya nodded.

‘Yes. Did you know that the saxophone was banned Napoleon? Of course most of my instruments were respectable, but I only got a couple of months in on the saxophone before they banned it in ’49. I never picked it up again.’

Napoleon tried to imagine that. How old would Illya have been? Sixteen? Sixteen, post-war; thin, and small, with a shock of blond hair. Illya practising on his saxophone, maybe trying to replicate the jazz music that he apparently loved so much.

‘Well, the records were banned too,’ Illya said. He very carefully placed the disc down on the turntable, and set it to play. The thing crackled, then soft jazz started to come through the speaker. ‘I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you, Napoleon,’ he said, coming to sit beside him on the settee.

‘No,’ Napoleon said. ‘It doesn’t surprise me at all. But it must have been pretty risky, doing this?’

Illya laughed. ‘Maybe that was some of the thrill of it. Some of the lure. Illegal music producers set up in basements and dark apartment rooms. Smuggling in the forbidden masters and making copies. Then gathering together to listen, never too loud, or too near anyone else who could hear. Have you ever listened to music like that, Napoleon?’

‘No,’ Napoleon said, shaking his head. ‘No. Nothing like that has ever really been banned here.’

Illya raised an eyebrow. ‘I could name a few books,’ he said.

‘Well, okay,’ Napoleon conceded. ‘But book reading isn’t exactly loud, and you don’t get together in parties to do it. And I didn’t fear being sent to the gulag if I were caught.’

‘So you read Lady Chatterley’s Lover too, did you?’ Illya asked.

Napoleon laughed. ‘Yes, but I only feared mom’s reaction if she found me with it,’ he said.

Of course he had read Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and, while he had enjoyed it, he had found the lurid parts disappointing, much lacking on what he had expected from the scandal that surrounded it.

‘Did you know E. M. Forster is rumoured to have written a novel even more shocking?’ Illya asked lightly, focussing on the bread board, where he was cutting himself a piece of cheese.

‘Is he?’ Napoleon asked.

Illya lowered his voice, although there wasn’t a chance anyone could overhear. Napoleon thought he was doing it for effect.

‘It’s rumoured to be about male love, Napoleon,’ he said. ‘Word is it’s in the hands of another author of the same persuasion, or, at least, that it will be after his death.’

‘Oh,’ Napoleon said, glancing at Illya, trying to read his reaction to that. Was he passing this on as a piece of salacious gossip, or was he sympathetic to the cause. ‘Well,’ Napoleon said. ‘I would read that too if it came out, and I wouldn’t have to hide it from my mother this time. I have no issue with male love, Illya.’

Illya didn’t reply, but there was a kind of response in his eyes. It was a little brightening, like a moment of internal acknowledgement, and satisfaction.

The music continued on the turntable. It wasn’t Napoleon’s genre of choice, but he liked it because Illya liked it. He liked the light that came into Illya’s face when he stopped talking and just listened.

He leant forward and poured Illya another glass of drink, then cut himself some more bread. This did remind him a little of that cellar in Terbuf; just the food and the drink, and sitting with Illya. Everything else was making a new memory. The music, the colours and lines of Illya’s apartment, being here with him now talking about his past. Illya spoke so rarely of his past.

‘So, you went to a lot of these get-togethers, did you?’ he asked.

‘Quite a few, while I was at university,’ Illya nodded. ‘Of course we were stupid. Stupid. We so easily could have been betrayed. It would only take one person. But we were so young and we had faith in each other. I suppose that faith was borne out because no one ever did betray us. We got away with it, every time. We used to pass the box of records around so it never stayed in anyone’s room for too long. We got very imaginative over places to hide them.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe no one ever came looking. You could never be sure. But we used to love those evenings, candles stuck in bottles even though we could quite easily have turned on the lights. A little bit of food. A _lot_ of alcohol. And bone records. Some child’s forearm on one, with a nasty break. More TB patients than you could count. A badly cracked skull. We always wondered who’d done that, if it were the authorities, but probably it was just some old man who got drunk and fell down the stairs. We got quite fond of those bone people, even if we never saw their flesh.’

Napoleon sat in silence. He felt as though he had just been gifted with something precious and rare. Illya had never talked for so long, and so deeply, about his life before he left the Soviet Union. He knew Illya was conflicted over the country that he loved, and the terrors and restrictions that still went on there.

‘I saw you the other night, Illya,’ he said at last. ‘In that club. I took a date there. I saw you playing in the band.’

Illya turned to look at him. Napoleon could tell that the slivovitz was starting to touch him. He was softer now, more open. His eyes looked a little more childlike. His posture was a little more relaxed. He had been relaxed enough, at least, to tell Napoleon about the bone records, to show him the secret he hid under his bed.

‘I didn’t realise,’ Illya said.

‘Well, no, you wouldn’t have been able to see us,’ Napoleon said. ‘The lights were in your eyes.’

‘Yes,’ Illya said simply. He picked up another wedge of bread, and dipped it in the oil.

‘You were good, Illya,’ Napoleon said. ‘You were – Hell, you were really good. I had no idea.’

There was a little flush in Illya’s cheeks then, and he shrugged.

‘I just play,’ he said. ‘I like it.’

‘You were good,’ Napoleon repeated firmly.

Illya’s eyes sparkled a little.

‘Sit there,’ he said, patting a hand on Napoleon’s knee, leaving it there just long enough that Napoleon could feel the warmth of his fingers. ‘Stay there.’

He carefully stopped the record player, carefully removed the disc, carefully slipped it back into its sleeve, and took it into the bedroom. When he came back he was carrying a little case. He opened it, and there, nestled inside, were the pieces of the cor anglais. He assembled the instrument with great concentration, and Napoleon just watched. The arrangement of the keys looked so complicated.

‘Luckily I’ve only just prepared this reed,’ Illya murmured, fitting the little bamboo sliver into the top of the instrument. He looked up and said rather self-consciously, ‘There is no way one can look elegant when playing the cor anglais, Napoleon. I warn you.’

Napoleon smiled. ‘I consider myself warned,’ he said.

Illya put his lips to the reed, then stopped and looked up. ‘Shostakovich,’ he said briefly, by way of introduction. ‘Symphony number eight. First movement.’

Napoleon mouthed an  _ah_ , although he didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t a piece that he knew.

Then Illya put the reed in his mouth again, this time curling his lips back in over his teeth, and Napoleon tried to keep a straight face. Illya was right. It didn’t look graceful. As soon as he started to play, though, any urge to laugh was gone.

It was a melancholy sound, a lingering, resonating sound that rose and fell, and filled the room. Napoleon closed his eyes and leant back against the cushions. It felt as if every atom around him, every atom in him, were vibrating with that music. Illya’s music was inside him, penetrating every part of his body. He felt that, and shivered, the same little electric shocks running through him again, his stomach lurching again. He opened his eyes and watched Illya’s hands on the keys. His eyes were far away. Illya was in the music, and the music was all around them. It was like being in a beautiful sea.

Napoleon closed his eyes again, and drifted. Melancholy. Summer days. Drifting. He wasn’t sure quite where the music was taking him because the movement was so constant. He felt as though he were swaying with the waves. Then he was up high, right up on the crest, and the music was piercing every part of him, and then slowly lowering him down. He touched a hand discreetly to his eye, and his fingers came back wet.

The music ended, and he felt bewildered. Illya was setting the instrument down on the table, and just looking at him. There was a little look of inquiry on his face, a look he rarely saw with Illya. It was uncertainty; a, _was that good enough?_

Napoleon opened his mouth but he wasn’t sure what to say.

‘I – ’ he said. He took a mouthful of his drink, and that helped. ‘That was just beautiful, Illya. Honestly, I don’t have the words to describe it. Thank you.’

Illya looked down at his hands, as if they had been responsible for the beauty, not he. He shrugged.

‘No,’ Napoleon said. ‘Seriously, Illya. You have a talent. Did you know that?’

Illya smiled a strange, shy smile. ‘I’m an agent,’ he said. ‘That’s where my talents lie.’

He took the instrument apart again and packed it in its case like a parent putting a baby into its crib.

‘You have more talents than half our agents put together,’ Napoleon said baldly.

‘Well,’ Illya said, coming back to sit beside him. He drank almost his whole glass of drink on sitting down.

The silence in the room felt enormous now that Illya was no longer filling it with that sound, and Napoleon drank a little more too.

‘I have to be careful when I practise,’ Illya said. ‘The neighbours don’t always like it. And I don’t even have a piano here – ’

‘I have a piano,’ Napoleon said, almost without thought. ‘You can come over and play it, any time you like.’

Illya looked up, his eyes sparkling. ‘Really, Napoleon? You would let me do that?’

Napoleon smiled. For a moment Illya had reminded him of the man he had first met over two years ago, somehow so much younger, so different. He had been more the junior agent then, and Napoleon his senior. Now they were much more like equals.

‘ _Any_ time,’ Napoleon repeated. ‘I mean it. It would be my pleasure to listen to you practice.’

‘You might not say that when I’ve been doing scales for an hour,’ Illya said, but he was still smiling.

‘Any time,’ Napoleon said again.

He had drunk just enough of the strong liquor now that he felt a little easy, and a little foolish, and he knew that his higher reasoning wasn’t going to step in in front of things his tongue wanted to say. He didn’t really mind that. Sometimes it was necessary to bypass higher reasoning.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come over tomorrow, for dinner? You can practice your scales while I cook. The neighbours won’t complain. They can hardly hear it. Good sound-proofing.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Illya mused. He had that easy look too. There was a lot of the bottle gone, and Napoleon was filling the glasses again. ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ he nodded. ‘Mr Waverly notwithstanding. As long as we don’t get sent halfway around the room – the – ’ He blinked and laughed, looking into his drink. ‘The world. Halfway around the world, Napoleon. Sorry. I’d forgotten how strong this is.’

‘If we are, I’ll take a rain check,’ Napoleon promised. He lifted his glass, and Illya clinked his own against it. ‘Tomorrow,’ Napoleon said again.

Illya’s eyes were so bright, and he looked so glad. This was such a rare and precious thing. Illya in such a relaxed state was like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said then. His tongue was engaging and his brain was lagging behind. He willed his brain to keep lagging behind. ‘What would you do if I kissed you?’

Illya looked at him for a moment, in silence. He just sat there, and looked. Then he said, ‘I would kiss you back, Napoleon. Why don’t you try it?’

  
  


((O))

  
  


Illya tasted like damson liqueur and fresh bread, and his hair smelt of shampoo, and his skin was clean and soft and tanned, and Napoleon hadn’t spent a night like that in a long time. He couldn’t remember everything that had happened, but he knew it had started with a kiss, and had quickly turned into more. He knew it had been perfect. It was perfect enough that they were tangled together now in Illya’s small bed, and the dawn light was reaching, pale and delicate, through the half-uncovered window, touching Illya’s skin and his own and turning it to gold. In this light Illya’s hair looked like gold too. He was asleep, his lips slightly parted, his bottom lip looking so full and beautiful that Napoleon wanted to bend down to kiss it. Illya would awaken immediately, though, if Napoleon so much as moved, so he stayed very still. He wanted to just watch this vision.

Illya’s eyes were moving a little under thin eyelids. He was dreaming, perhaps. His arm was flung across Napoleon’s chest. The sheet hardly covered his body, and Napoleon could see his flank, his hip, the strong muscle of one buttock, and the sculpted muscle of his thigh, before his leg disappeared under the white cover. He had a sudden, all-encompassing sensory memory of what they had done last night together, and warmth spread through him. It all felt so perfect, so utterly perfect.

He imagined Illya playing Fanfare for the Common Man on his oboe as the sun rose and sent long tongues of light and shadow along the streets. He thought of him in his university days, huddled with his friends in secret, listening to those records. He thought of him in that jazz club in his white poloneck, completely in his element. He had discovered a new Illya in the last week, as if he had watched a flower blossom from a bud. He had never expected the fully bloomed Illya to look like this. It was beautiful.

He moved just enough to press his lips against Illya’s ear, and whispered, ‘Time to wake up, sleepy head. We’ll be late for work.’

Illya’s eyes fluttered, and opened.

It felt like the first morning of the rest of his life.


End file.
